Microsoft ICE - Free panoramic photo stitching software

I found this amazing software called Image Composite Editor (ICE) by Microsfot while searching for free software to stitch photos. I found few other free photo stitching softwares too, but they were difficult to install, took lot of time to stitch, and/or producing low-quality images.

 

Using photo stitching software, you can stitch a set of overlapping photos taken of a location into a single image. Assume that you want to shoot a wide-angled scene with your mobile camera, you can take photos of that scene into rectangular grid of rows and columns and then using photo stitching software, you can create a high-resolution single image.

Microsoft Image Composite Editor (ICE) is available as a free software. It can stitch giga pixels of images into one single image. No other software can match its speed. It is available for both 32-bit and 64-bit windows and supported up to Windows 7.

Click the image for a bigger and clear image

Flickr has a group for the images stitched with Microsoft ICE, http://www.flickr.com/groups/922872@N23/.  Check the photos created with it and you will understand what you can do with this little free application.

For example purpose, I have captured the Microsft webpage into 4 different parts of unequal lengths and stitched into one. Click the below images to see, how good it stitched the images into one.

This is a photo taken from the ICE group on Flickr as an example for panoramic image created with stitching 14 photos into one:

Backup and sync Firefox environment with one click

My system has been giving problems lately with the hardware and at anytime, it can crash.  So, I have purchased a WD Elements Portable 160GB USB hard drive and uploaded all the data onto it. Whenever I download a software, I keep a copy on my hard disk, so now I am having all the software copies.  What I am missing is Firefox data.  

I use a number of extensions, tweaks, and themes and has huge number of usernames and passwords stored in it. So, this Sunday, I have searched and implemented few backup options and found FEBE as the best extension for it. Here is my review of this little useful extension that relieved my tension of being missing very important data:

 

FEBE (Firefox Environment Backup Extension) allows Firefox users to quickly and easily backup extensions, themes, bookmarks, preferences, search plugins, and browser history. Before backing up, it will rebuild all the extensions individually into installable .xpi files, so you can sync the Firefox browser in your office and home.  It also has option of scheduling the backups. Another useful feature in FEBE is backing up the data onto your Box.net’s free storage account, which makes this extension hot.  I used to export the username and passwords list using Password Exporter plugin and then uploading them into Box.net account.  Now, I don’t need to worry about manually uploading them. Just a click takes backup of all the data and stores a copy in your system as well as on Box account.

It also has quick backup option from which you can select few or only one item to be backed up saving your time.

FEBE Options Tab

Taking backup and uploading them into Box.net account

Showing progress of upload into Box.net account

Restoring the files is also easy.  By going through Tools>FEBE>Restore option, you can restore all the data one by one.

Restore options

Health insurance policy is now portable

Now you can port your health insurance to any health insurance company in India. IRDA (Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority) today released the advertisement to all newspapers about it. 

 

You can now keep the credit gained in your existing policy even after switching to a new insurance company. You may be aware or not, all medical conditions and pre-existing illness are not covered by all policies. Only few high-premium policies cover those. All other normal health insurances will not cover them for the first two years. They are only covered after you paid your third premium. Suppose if you want to change the insurance company in the fourth year, you need to start afresh with the new insurance company and you will be covered for pre-existing and few complicated medical conditions only after paying third premium.

With portability, you can now change the insurance company keeping that “two-year-old policy” credit. You will be readily covered for all conditions by your new insurance company. If you don’t like your current insurance company or if you find a better policy offered at less premium, you can change it. You should apply at least 45 days before its renewal date.

The advertisement read as following:
•  Portability means transfer of the credit gained by the insured for pre-existing conditions and time bound exclusions if the policyholder chooses to switch from one insurer to another insurer or from one plan to another plan of the same insurer, provided the previous policy has been maintained without any break.
•  A break in policy occurs when the premium due on a given policy is not paid on or before the premium renewal date or within 30 days thereof.
•  A policyholder should apply to such insurance company at least 45 days before the premium renewal date of his/her existing policy for porting his/her policy.
•  The policyholder should fill in the Portability Form along with proposal form and submit the same to the insurance company.
•  If the insurance company does not communicate its decision to the requesting policyholder within 15 days of providing all the details as required by the insurer, the insurance company shall not retain the right to reject such proposal.
•  Portability is allowed to all individual health insurance policies issued by non-life insurance companies including family floater policies

Free Windows Registry Cleaner

While going through an online software selling website, I have seen approx. $25 costing registry cleaner in the hot selling products list.  I wondered why people are shelling out that much when there are a number of free registry cleaners are available.  So, this post has come out of that doubt and show the people a free registry cleaner that I have been using for years. 

What is a Registry Cleaner?
Registry cleaner is a software that cleans the unwanted registry entries, invalid paths, invalid ActiveX, unused file extensions, etc. thus by speeding up the system.  Registry is a database where Windows Operating System stores its settings and options.

One of the best and free registry cleaner is RegSeeker.  It come as a standalone product, which does not need any installation.  Just copy the folder onto desktop or just drop into your Program Files folder.

If you use it for the first time, you can see that hundreds of invalid and unwanted registry entries and after deleting them, you can see a slight boost in your system’s performance.  Sometimes when you uninstall a software, it just deletes the files in Program Files folder, but keeps the entries in registry like software key, which troubles sometimes when you change the key.  I have had these problems and resolved it easily by running Registry Cleaner.

It also comes with features like tweaks for XP, listing and uninstallation of installed products, and searching and deleting registry entries right from RegSeeker.

RegSeeker Homepage: http://www.hoverdesk.net/freeware.htm

Empty Recycle Bin at Logoff and Shutdown on Windows XP

I had been looking for a simple solution for legacy systems (Windows XP) to perform a simply empty recycle bin during a shutdown and even better if it can be integrated into a logoff. To my surprise there were tons of requests for years and nobody gave a solution properly which does not require any 3rd party tools.
Most of the users suggest to turn off Recycle bin totally, but it can save lives sometimes, so that not what we want. Secondly, if we need to install a tool, we are just expanding our exposure to risk since the tool may have vulnerability and who knows what it can do when run as SYSTEM during a shutdown.
I found the simplest solution is to make use of Microsoft's built in shutdown and logoff script function:
Shutdown scripts: https://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/gptext_assigncomputershutdownscripts.mspx?mfr=true
Logoff scripts: https://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/gptext_logoffscripts.mspx?mfr=true
However, do take note that Shutdown scripts are run as SYSTEM and logoff scripts are run as the user logging off.
A simple "Empty the Recycle Bin" scripts using just batch file:
ATTRIB %systemdrive%\RECYCLER\* -R -S -H /S /D
DEL %systemdrive%\RECYCLER\* /F /S /Q
RD %systemdrive%\RECYCLER /S /Q
It's 3 lines to make sure it deletes and finish the job. Just copy and paste into a batch file which is your logoff / shutdown script.
There we have it. A simple and do-no-need-3rd-party solution. I hope you will find it useful.

Open source download accelerator – wxDownload Fast

Say goodbye to commercial download accelerators.  Here comes open source application – wxDownload Fast.  As my system got crashed few days ago due to power fluctuations, I had to repair the system and install the OS and lot of applications freshly. I have become open source applications fan and have been trying alternatives to the commercial applications.

Now, it is the time for testing an application for download accelerator and found wxDownload Fast, which is working great for me.  It is built using C++ and available for Windows XP and Linux.  It has all the features that commercial products have like segmented/multi-threaded/accelerated transfers, scheduling the download, file organizing, pause and resume, proxy support, etc.  It also available in a potable format, which does not need installation, so you can try it without installing or can carry on a USB.  It also calculates the MD5/SHA1 checksum of downloaded files so they can be easily verified.

 

The only thing it is missing is browser integration.  It does not automatically integrates into IE or Firefox.  If you want to integrate wxDownload Fast with Firefox, you first need to install FlashGot and select wxDownload Fast as external download manager.  You can always copy the link location by pressing right mouse button and selecting “Copy Link Location” and when you click “New” in wxDownload Fast, it will automatically recognizes the download link from clipboard.  Get it here.

How to report an abusive website?

n the last few days, I got lot of mails from greetingcard.org that I received a greeting card.  But, Gmail has marked them spam and thrown into spam folder.  Usually, I check only few spam messages that I think Gmail has wrongly marked as spam to see whether they are actually spam or not.

 

So, I opened the greetingcard.org mail today and seen that it is actually not coming from greetingcard.org.  From address is looked like this:  greetingcard.org

<webmaster@infinisource.com>.  Someone used loopholes in mailing script of that site or spoofed the mail to send this spam message.

Email read like this:

From above you can see that mail is coming from another site with the user name as greetingcard.org.  It shows the greeting card link as an .exe file, which may contain harmful virus, malware, or adware.

So, how can we report it so that the domain and server can be shutdown and save others from this email attack?

To see the website’s registrar and hosting company details, we need to check the “Who is” of that domain.  “Who is” data contains the domain registrar’s and owner’s details, domain creation date, update date, and expiration details along with name server details, which normally look like ns1.hostingcompany.com and ns2.hostingcompany.com most of the time.

Every domain registrar and hosting company will have a section called “Abuse Department,” which takes care of spam issues from a website and shuts down the domain or hosting when they receive complaints against a domain.

From the above mail, the suspicious website is wings-softbal.com.  Go to the website, IPTools.com or DNSstuff.com from which you can do a whois lookup.  Enter the domain name wings-softbal.com in Domain Whois Lookup section.

It will show the whois information like this.

Whois query shows that the domain registrar is WildWestDomains.com and hosting company is TotalChoiceHosting.com.  Go to WildWestDomains.com and see if there is a link to report a spam site. Fortunately, we can see on the homepage itself a “Report Spam” link in the “Quick Help” section.

Click on that and file a complaint and also forward the spam message you received.

Now, go to TotalChoiceHosting.com and see if there is any link to report Abuse directly.  I was unable to locate a direct link, but there was live online help as well as help through various messengers.  Using any one of it, we can talk to the operator and ask them the way to report the spam.

Luckily, someone has already reported this website and the hosting company is showing a suspended account message.

You may be interested in reading my other tutorials here.

FREE digital magazine subscriptions – Over 200 titles

 

You might have received emails and snail mails from banks to opt for email statements rather than physical printed statements.  Few banks even offered cash prizes and free goodies to the customers who have opted for email statements as part of their echo-friendly initiatives. There are lot of organizations that are working towards echo-friendly things.  GoReadGreen is also a site that is working towards promoting digital magazines by which, they think, can reduce the printed version of the magazines and save the trees.

 

As a part of their “Read Green Initiative”, they are offering free one year subscription to over 200 popular magazines like MIT’s Technology Review, Popular Science, Reader’s Digest, Popular Science, Playboy Mexico, Penthouse, Interior, Yoga, iPhone Life, etc.  All magazines will be available for reading online and offline through Zinio.

They say, “many groups and associations are dedicated to exploring earth-friendly efforts such as recycling programs, reducing newsstand distribution and ensuring printing is done on recycled paper.”

Click this link to see all the magazines available.  Click “More Magazines” at the bottom to see the next set.  You can alternatively browse by category, which are available on the left side.

It currently allows only one magazine subscription per email address.  There is a hack to register for more magazines per email. Subscribe first using the original email address. When your account is created at Zinio and credited with one year free subscription, do not log out.  Go to the magazines list again and register for another book by putting dot somewhere in your Gmail address.  Like, if your original Gmail address looks like yourname@gmail.com, then register the second book with your.name@gmail.com.  By default, Gmail ignores dots in your email address.  So your.name, your.na.me, you.r.name are same as yourname.  But, do not spam this offer, only subscribe to the books that you really need.

Free MS Project alternatives

What is MS Project?

MS Project or any Project Management Software will help the project managers to create plans, assign resources to tasks, track the progress of the work, and manage budges and workloads.  The following is the description taken from Wikipedia:

“Project creates budgets based on assignment work and resource rates. As resources are assigned to tasks and assignment work estimated, the program calculates the cost equals the work times the rate, which rolls up to the task level and then to any summary tasks and finally to the project level. Resource definitions (people, equipment and materials) can be shared between projects using a shared resource pool. Each resource can have its own calendar, which defines what days and shifts a resource is available. Resource rates are used to calculate resource assignment costs which are rolled up and summarized at the resource level. Each resource can be assigned to multiple tasks in multiple plans and each task can be assigned multiple resources, and the application schedules task work based on the resource availability as defined in the resource calendars. All resources can be defined in an enterprise-wide resource pool.”

Below are the three alternatives I found.

 

OpenProj: OpenProj is a free open-source project management solution.  This is the first one I found and even I read some blog posts stating that small companies are using this software successfully as an alternative to MS Project.  OpenProj is available in Windows, Mac, and Linux versions.  Site also says that OpenProj has been translated into French, Spanish, German, Portuguese, Swedish, Finnish, Galician, Persian, Russian, Korean and Chinese.  Even, my brother selected this for his projects.  It is just 6 MB approximately.

 

Open Workbench: It is also an open source free software available for only Windows.  Site states that one lakh project managers are successfully using it in their project managements and it is powerful alternative to Microsoft Project.  Download count on their homepage also showing nearly 2,000,000 downloads.

 

KPlato: It is a Linux alternative for MS Project available as a component in KOffice.  It only works on Linux distributions.  It is still in development and bugs persist.  It takes some time for it to evolve into fully functional project management software.

Free stock photos/images for your website or blog

I often see people copying images from other websites and blogs freely without permission.  They are not aware that copying image from other websites is illegal.  You can be sued and/or your site can be taken down for doing so.

So, when you need an image to put in your blog or website, either you need to purchase one from stock photo selling websites like Getty Images, iStockphoto, etc. or find free ones.  Before going into free resource details, I want you to learn about different licenses like public domain, creative commons, etc.

There are a few good sites where you can get high quality pictures for free.  Below are the three best sources I use for all my needs.

 

Stock.Xchng:  It is my favorite site to get quality images for my work.  There are around 4 lakhs of royalty-free images available on SXC.  Don’t forget to browse through Hall of Fame, Most Commented, and Most Downloaded images from the drop down menu below the SXC logo.

 

Flickr:  It has millions of photos you can use for your site or blog with attribution.  Flickr photos are tagged with Creative Commons licenses.  Use the advanced search to find the image you need.  Don’t forget to select the license at the bottom.  Browse photos by license here.

If you find a photo you really need and there is no license mentioned, you can always mail the owner asking permission to use it on your site.  I was working on a tourism site and I searched for the photos on Flickr.  I found high quality pictures on Flickr, but there were no license details mentioned.  I sent mail to the owners asking for the permission and they happily allowed me to use it in my work.  They just wanted to know where I was using them.

 

Picasa Web Albums:  Picasa is also a good place to search for images with Creative Commons attribution.  Go to Picasa Web and on the top right corner, you will see a search box.  Search for the image you are looking for and then clock the “Show Options” on the top left corner.  At the bottom, you can see a section called “All licenses”  Choose the one of three licenses available according to your needs and you are done.

Now, I think you got an idea where to search for free images for your website.